How many people are imprisoned in South Korea?

South Korea's prison population is 55,000 people. This figure aggregates all forms of detention counted by the source: sentenced prisoners, pre-trial detainees, and administrative detentions.

What is the incarceration rate in South Korea?

South Korea's incarceration rate is approximately 107 people per 100,000 population.

How many prisons are there in South Korea?

World Prisons indexes 101 individual facilities in South Korea. Each entry links to a detail page with contact information, capacity, oversight reports, and known conditions.

Does South Korea have the death penalty?

South Korea's death-penalty status is: abolitionist-in-practice. Seeded from Amnesty International 2024 categorisation + Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.

All countries

Asia · Eastern Asia

South Korea

High confidence

Verified 20 May 2026 · Data dated 1 Jun 2024

Aging · 5mo ago

Compare South Korea World Prison Brief page

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

Prison population

55,000

Year: 2023

Rate per 100,000

107

Per 100,000 residents

Occupancy

122%

Above design capacity

Pre-trial / remand

33%

Share not yet sentenced

Female prisoners

7.8%

Foreign nationals

5.5%

Figures from official sources · verified 20 May 2026 · methodology

Conditions risk — across 101 facilities

Average of our computed Conditions Risk Score across the country's facilities. Methodology · Browse highest-risk

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national average

101 unknown

abolitionist in practice on capital punishment. Last known execution: 1997.Methods: hangingICCPR-OP2 (death-penalty abolition protocol): not a signatory

Seeded from Amnesty International 2024 categorisation + Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide.

Source: Amnesty International + Cornell Death Penalty Worldwide.

How South Korea compares

vs Asia (16) & global averages

Rate per 100,000this: 107 · region: 168 · global: 214

Occupancy ratethis: 122% · region: 150% · global: 125%

Pre-trial sharethis: 33% · region: 33% · global: 32%

The vertical ticks mark the global (grey) and regional (amber) means. Bars are clipped at the high end for readability.

Prison population over time

Annual figures, latest survey year

2003: 57,336+3.1% over 20y2023: 59,088

Source: unodc

What we know — and don't

Transparency about the boundaries of this data. Click sources where linked.

What we don't know

World Prison Brief does not maintain a page for this country.

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Held

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See all 101 prisons in South Korea →

Data completeness

90%

Score based on how many fields are populated. We surface this so you know where the gaps are.

National population: 51,500,0002023
Source-verified: 20 May 2026
Source links: 1 cited

Sources

Direct citations for the figures on this page.

Primary reference
World Prison Brief (ICPS, Birkbeck) — Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research
See /data-sources for our methodology.

ISO 3166-1 alpha-3: KOR

Cite this page

Under CC-BY-4.0. Include the URL and access date; the site is a living reference and entries can change.

APA

World Prisons. (2026). South Korea — prison statistics. Retrieved October 15, 2026, from https://worldprisons.com/countries/south-korea

Chicago

"South Korea — prison statistics." World Prisons. Accessed October 15, 2026. https://worldprisons.com/countries/south-korea.

BibTeX

@misc{worldprisons-south-korea,
  author = {{World Prisons}},
  title = {South Korea — prison statistics},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://worldprisons.com/countries/south-korea},
  urldate = {2026-10-15}
}